


meet in the middle

by craftingdead



Series: charlie will make cd a common tag if it kills them [29]
Category: The Crafting Dead
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, F/F, and that was lynx twins so i decided i should throw something in, here u go roe ;), or well. different meeting at fucking all, same difference, this was originally mainly shubmau but i remembered its been one year since cd fic numbero one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-19 20:17:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19363510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/craftingdead/pseuds/craftingdead
Summary: “Yeah, I don’t,” she says, “but I can sure try. We’re almost there. Stop worrying and just try and get this last stretch in, okay? By the way,” she adds after she removes her hand from Jess’s shoulder, “my name is Shelby. Just thought I should tell you before we meet whatever’s at the CDC, or whatever.”“Shelby, huh?” Jess says. “Well, then, if you’re telling me your name I should tell you mine. My name’s Jess.”“Wouldn’t take you for a Jess, but I guess you wouldn’t take me for a Shelby, either,” she says.Jess shakes her head. “Nope.”





	meet in the middle

They meet in the middle; the redheaded girl has her katana to Jess’s throat, and the pistol Jess hangs off her belt is against the back of her neck.

“Well,” the girl says after a few seconds, “this sure is a predicament.” Then she grins, eyes flashing down at her and her eyes crinkling in a vaguely familiar way, though Jess just can’t put her finger on it.

Jess pulls away, bringing her gun with her, and the girl thankfully doesn’t follow. She frowns. She doesn’t have time for this—God knows how long it’s been since they left. The men at the prison said “about a month or two,” which barely gives her anything to go off of, but it’s enough to follow a trail; buried wrappers; a stamped out fire; a magazine dropped next to the riverside. 

The path is less taken, more dangerous, so she doesn’t expect anyone else to have taken it. But it’s a long way to Atlanta, and it’s been “a month or two,” since they left, which means the group could’ve stayed at their base for God knows how long before. She hasn’t been keeping track of the days or months or weeks. She should have.

She turns to leave and the girl behind her calls out, “Hey, wait! Where are you going?”

“I’m  _ going  _ to go find my friends.” Jess turns back, annoyed. “Which is what I was doing before you so rudely interrupted me.”

The girl doesn’t respond to that last part, just keeps on smiling. “Can I join you? I’ve been  _ sup-er  _ bored lately. My group can handle on fine without me,” she asks, stashing away her katana (or, more than likely, a shitty knockoff that wouldn’t even pierce her skin).

“You just tried to  _ attack  _ me.”

“You win some, you lose some.” She shrugs. “And I thought you were a walker. And you probably thought I was a walker, too!” When Jess just levels a glare at her, she shuffles her feet, and says, “Okay, I’m sorry for attacking you. I’ve been super jumpy right now too. But I really want to come with you—you’re heading in the direction of that city. Atlanta, isn’t it?”

Jess blinks. “How did you—”

“Like, no one who isn’t going there passes through this way,” she responds, waving her hand around aimlessly. “Either way. I, myself, am looking for my brother, and a dude I know said he might have seen him walking this way to Atlanta as well, so I’m heading there too. Don’t they say that it’s better in numbers?”

“Yeah, and I’m pretty sure there’s something in there about not attacking strangers.” She pauses, for a second, as the girl pouts. “Fine. You can come with me. I could use some company, either way.” Her face lights up. Jess prays she isn’t going to regret this.

“What’s your name?” the girl asks.

Jess shakes her head. “You’re gonna have to wait for that.”

“Then I guess you’re gonna have to wait for mine.”

* * *

They crash at a little cabin in the woods before continuing on, as night was falling and Jess is exhausted and the girl doesn’t look too good herself.

She promises her that the place is safe, that she’s stayed there a few times, but Jess is still wary when she sees it. The raw wound of Doctor Ross is still fresh in her mind and the hole in her heart, but as the girl scouts the outside and Jess near tears the place apart, nothing sparks off any uneasiness. So, with resign, Jess sinks into a worn couch and crosses her arms.

In the short time—only about five hours sleep for the both of them—she learns a few things about the girl; she was slightly younger then Jess, from a year and a half to two years younger; she didn’t live on the mainland, surprisingly, with how familiar with it she is; her brother’s her twin and they were separated at the beginning of the apocalypse.

“You were separated? And you still think he’s alive?” Jess blurts out before she can stop herself because she was always used to being so blunt with the others.

The girl shrugs. “I dunno. He’s smart. There’s no way he wouldn’t get… get killed without getting to the mainland at least. I have to believe there’s some way I can find him. And my friend, Bobby, swears up and down that he’s seen him, and Bobby’s never lied to me before.”

And, in turn, the girl learns about Jess.

How she was looking for her father—and, eventually, gave up on it. How the dog yapping next to her is her friends, and she can’t believe it hasn’t run off to find its owner. How a few of her friends died to a man, which was one of the main reasons she ran off; couldn’t deal with the grief, with seeing them, after everything.

The girl layers a hand on top of hers, brows furrowing and a sympathetic look on her face. “I’m so sorry that had to happen to you,” she says, “I lost both my mother and father within a few months.”

It kind of reminds her of something Nick would say; he was always the most empathic of them all, willing to let her cry into his shoulder about Sky and Barney, or calming Ghetto and AK down, or convincing Cory and Uni not to leave them. 

“You remind me of someone I know,” she says, still blurting stuff out, but the girl hasn’t minded so far, so she guesses that it’s fine.

“Don’t we all?” she responds.

* * *

The next day, they set off for Atlanta, and Jess learns even more about her.

How she puts her hair up into a ponytail or a loose bun before going into a place with unknown or high amount of walkers—she says, “It’s so they can’t get your hair,” and Jess, self-conscious about how she hasn’t thought about that before, borrows a purple hair tie from her and puts her own up into a ponytail.

She also learns that the girl doesn’t like guns. “They’re too loud,” she whines, “I’ve always been better at hand to hand.”

“Doesn’t it get dangerous, fighting off walkers with that?” Jess says, pointing to her katana. Sure, she might be good, but could she get them to Atlanta without getting hurt—or, worse, killed or bitten?

The girl tilts her head back and laughs, shaking her head and loose strands of hair out of her face in the process. “My katana? Nope, never. I’ve adjusted to it. I’ve never had to use a gun, except for when I absolutely had to, so this thing gets the work done as good as one of those could. I would more than likely be super, super bad with a gun if I tried.”

“I guess,” Jess says, still slightly in disbelief. “If you ever need help, you can just call me over.  _ I  _ know how to use a gun.”

“Sure you do,” the girl says, then winks.

* * *

Much to Jess’s surprise, she can actually hold her own pretty well with that katana. Even saves Jess a few times, fighting off walkers as she gains her balance and stature again, reloading her gun and getting ready to go back into the fray.

They’re pretty close to Atlanta already; Jess walked for a few days and nights straight, and she can feel those nights weighing on her, and she just wants to get there and have the entire thing be over with. She wants to see her friends. The girl’s face also takes one of excitement the closer they got—by then, they could see the tip tops of large buildings in the distance poking out from the top of the trees.

The city doesn’t take her breath away when she sees it, already being in many across her lifetime, but the girl stares in awe at the swinging bridge, the buildings stretching for miles, the waves lapping across the river.

“Come on,” Jess says, and near drags her across the bridge, having to keep checking back behind her to make sure she wasn’t gawking at anything. “Haven’t you ever seen a city like this before.”

“I grew up in a smaller place,” the girl argues, “sure, it was a city, but not this big! I’ve only ever really seen them on TV.”

Jess sighs. “Well, you’ll probably get a better view once we get to the CDC, so until then can you watch out for yourself?”

The girl collects herself and smiles. “Of course.”

* * *

Jess, thankfully, knows the way to the CDC. In the back of her mind, she wonders if the others even knew the way; if they were even there. But she prays that they are. There was no way that they could’ve gotten killed on the way there, they were too smart. But they still could have left the CDC a while back. Panic bubbles in her chest. What if she can’t find them? What if they reach the CDC and no one is there— _ no one _ no one, not even scientists or doctors or military men or whoever could possibly be there?

She’s snapped out of it by the girl resting a comforting hand on her shoulder. When Jess looks down, she’s smiling softly down at her. “Don’t worry,” she says, “it’s going to be fine. We will find people there. You don’t have to keep worrying—hey, didn’t you say there were people at D.C. even after you heard about it falling? No one has heard anything of the like about the CDC, so it has to be up and running. It’ll be fine.”

“You don’t know that,” Jess sniffs, slightly annoyed that the girl was able to read her like that so well. Almost no one was able to do that—and only one of those people ever brought it up so bluntly.

“Yeah, I don’t,” she says, “but I can sure try. We’re almost there. Stop worrying and just try and get this last stretch in, okay? By the way,” she adds after she removes her hand from Jess’s shoulder, “my name is Shelby. Just thought I should tell you before we meet whatever’s at the CDC, or whatever.”

“Shelby, huh?” Jess says. “Well, then, if you’re telling me your name I should tell you mine. My name’s Jess.”

“Wouldn’t take you for a  _ Jess, _ but I guess you wouldn’t take me for a Shelby, either,” she says. 

Jess shakes her head. “Nope.”

* * *

They get to the CDC and are immediately confronted by a taller man in uniform, frowning down at the two girls. “Who are you, and what do you want?” he asks, the gun on his back and the pistol on his waist shining dangerously. Jess isn’t fazed, and the girl isn’t, but she’s twitching just a bet so Jess better take this one.

“I’m Jess,” she explains, “and this is Shelby. I’m looking for my friends, and she’s looking for her brother. We both heard that they came this way. Would you know them?”

“Jess?” the man says. “I’ve heard that name brought up before. Say, you wouldn’t happen to know… Ghetto, AK, Shark, those guys, would you? Doctor Jin? Do those ring any bells?”

Jess’s face lights up, and warmth spreads in her chest. “Yes! Those are the people!” she says, and resists the urge to pump her fist in the air.

He smiles, and says, “Well, I guess I will have to let you two in, then. I’m Gray—Major Gray. And I’ll be sure to send out a notice for your brother,” he adds to Shelby and ushers the two of them in.

“Can’t believe you’re going to abandon me for your friends,” Shelby leans over and whispers as Gray shows them around.

“Don’t worry,” Jess whispers back, “they’re all losers. You are the only cool person I’ve met in this fucking apocalypse, there’s no way I’m giving that up now.”

She grins as Gray says, “and this—our last stop for now—is the main cafeteria! When people aren’t in the commonplace or their rooms, this where they are and—oh! There they are right now! Hey, Ghetto, guys, look who showed up!”   


Jess barely hears a shriek of her name before Ghetto is up and hugging her tightly. “I can’t breath,” she hisses at him and punches him in the arm the moment he pulls away. “Shelby, I should probably introduce you to these people—Shelby?”

She isn’t looking at her; instead, staring at Nick, who lifts his head and then meets her gaze, and—oh. That’s where the resemblance came from. That… Jess should’ve figured that out. Shelby sprints over, faster than Jess ever saw, and tackles him to the ground. She really should’ve figured that out. But hey, she still has time to ask Shelby whatever she wants to, she remembers with a smile. That’s just one thing checked off the list.


End file.
